Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
“There’s been a boy in here crying?” said Harry curiously. “A young
boy?”
“Never you mind!” said Myrtle, her small, leaky eyes fixed on Ron, who
was now definitely grinning. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I’ll
take his secret to the —”
“— not the grave, surely?” said Ron with a snort. “The sewers, maybe...”
Myrtle gave a howl of rage and dived back into the toilet, causing water to
slop over the sides and onto the floor. Goading Myrtle seemed to have put
fresh heart into Ron.
“You’re right,” he said, swinging his schoolbag back over his shoulder,
“I’ll do the practice sessions in Hogsmeade before I decide about taking the
test.”
And so the following weekend, Ron joined Hermione and the rest of the
sixth years who would turn seventeen in time to take the test in a fortnight.
Harry felt rather jealous watching them all get ready to go into the village;
he missed making trips there, and it was a particularly fine spring day, one
of the first clear skies they had seen in a long time. However, he had decided
to use the time to attempt another assault on the Room of Requirement.
“You’d do better,” said Hermione, when he confided this plan to Ron and
her in the entrance hall, “to go straight to Slughorn’s office and try and get
that memory from him.”
“I’ve been trying!” said Harry crossly, which was perfectly true. He had
lagged behind after every Potions lesson that week in an attempt to corner
Slughorn, but the Potions master always left the dungeon so fast that Harry
had not been able to catch him. Twice, Harry had gone to his office and
knocked, but received no reply, though on the second occasion he was sure
he had heard the quickly stifled sounds of an old gramophone.
“He doesn’t want to talk to me, Hermione! He can tell I’ve been trying to
get him on his own again, and he’s not going to let it happen!”
“Well, you’ve just got to keep at it, haven’t you?”
The short queue of people waiting to file past Filch, who was doing his
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